1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical switching device which performs ultrahigh speed optical switching of signal light in a wavelength region for optical communication with control light by utilizing high nonlinear optical properties of organic film in a wavelength region for optical communication. It also relates to an optical device using this optical switching device.
2. Description of the Related Art
We studied an associated thin film of a squarelirium derivative which can be used in an optical switch for the optical communication of terabit (1012 bit/s) order, and confirmed that the squarelirium dye derivatives form an association on a solid substrate and that the association exhibits super high speed optical response characteristics at femtosecond order (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-open (JP-A) No. 2000-111967).